


all the broken hearts in the world (still beat)

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (And Totally Deserves Hazard Pay For Dealing With These Idiots), Bucky Barnes Recovering, Clint's a Smartass Who Speaks Fluent Natasha, Companionable Snark, Emotional Progress, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Oblivious Bucky Barnes, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 03:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3514172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve—endearing dumbass that he is—is currently looking at her, all wide eyes and nothing held back because it’s a damned qualifier that all endearing dumbasses wear their squishy, bleeding hearts on their sleeves, apparently: wrapped up in nothing but loyalty and how bad they are at keeping their feelings in check.</p><p>“Whatever it is, spit it out. I’ve got somewhere to be,” Natasha says, evenly as she can because she loves Steve, she does—a whole bunch, even. But he’s as much of an idiot as the other half of that unflagging shoulder-heart of his where it's sitting in the living room.</p><p>She should get hazard pay for this shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the broken hearts in the world (still beat)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weepingnaiad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad/gifts).



> For my dearest, darlingest, most wonderful [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), as the first of her birthday presents: she prompted me with this _months_ ago, and I'd been wanting to write it for her ever since, but I kept getting sidetracked. So, for her special day, I wanted to try this idea, and to give to her the things she likes more in the process. I tried a bit of a departure from my usual style and characterizations, which may or may not have worked (we'll see), but here it is, my lovely. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you have a birthday that's worthy of your unfathomable awesome  <333
> 
> Title shamelessly nabbed from [Ingrid Michaelson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GBT37_yyzY).

It’s not that Steve’s only just realizing it; it’s not that he didn’t know it from the start, but it is a thing he’s only just now willing to put into words: if not spoken aloud, then in his own mind. In his own mind, he’s willing to say it plain, to shudder straight down the spine with it, pitiless and harsh and real.

 _Selfish_ , he says to himself, and then on its heels: _Coward_.

Because it’s not the first time he finds himself here. In the then, in the now: this is where Steve lives. This is where Steve knows himself—best, even, save for the exception to the rule, save for the reason he knows this space at all, knows how he fits beside these failings, these sins—Steve knows himself here.

The only place he knows himself better than he knows where he lives, is where he _loves_.

Which makes sense. Loving’s the only thing that’s kept him living, really. Loving’s the only thing that ever could have brought him to this.

Because Steve’s not a giving man, not a noble man, no matter what the history books have made of him, no matter what face he’s always shown. Truth is, he’s a greedy bastard when it comes to what he wants. When it comes to what his heart wants.

So yeah. Yeah, Steve made a bigger fuss about stupid little things when Bucky dragged him out, sometimes; when the girls Bucky’d swing around the dancefloor got too bright of stars in their eyes. When it felt like they were edging too close to something real, something dangerous. Maybe Steve’d tried less than he could have to keep himself from working up into a coughing fit, when Bucky’d leaned in to whisper, to neck with a dame in his arms one time too many for Steve’s liking. And so what if “too many” was sometimes the same as “any at all”—that was Steve’s business.

And Steve’s never called himself anything but what he is, so. It’s not his fault if other people didn’t bother looking for the facts.

And maybe it doesn’t help that Steve thinks he’d forgotten what it meant to want—to properly want, to want with everything he is and ever was and ever could be; maybe it doesn’t help that the only wanting Steve’s done since he woke up in this new time is to reclaim the past, to reach his arm just a little farther, to have frozen straight through so that his heart, if it was ever going to bother with beating again, wouldn’t have to feel so cracked with hurt: maybe it doesn’t help that this century’s only ever seen him stumble from half-intention, to the kind of obligation that only just kept his blood pumping; that they’ve only ever known him fueled by the desperate need to matter, to have something come of all the wrong and all the loss and all the pain, to keep others from that same unearned fate. Maybe it doesn’t help.

But now, the only want he’s ever known is flesh and blood and breath again; is real, and Steve can watch him sprawl on the couch in the apartment they share, Steve can measure the rise and fall of his chest as he dozes off, can chart the tensing of muscles that give him away as he wakes—now, Steve knows want again. And he’s a selfish son of a bitch.

He’s a selfish son of a bitch, and there is so much of his heart that wants to interrupt the scene in front of him, because he wants. He _wants_.

And what he wants is being given to another, right before his eyes.

Because again— _again_ , because they’re here so often, the sight’s grown familiar, just like the twist in Steve’s chest—again, they’re sitting there, Bucky reclined on the sofa, mostly-boneless in a way that Steve’s been aching to get so much as a _glimpse_ of, for _months_ : wholly relaxed, breath even and deep, lap occupied with curls, fingers twisted in the locks and stroking rhythmic, mindless and rote through Natasha’s hair as she smiles, full lips turned up as she leans almost imperceptibly into the touch, as she speaks low, mouth forming words that Steve can read but doesn’t understand, the two of them lost in the language, the closeness—this bubble that’s only theirs.

Steve swallows, and it tastes of bile. It tastes of heartbreak, like blood on his tongue.

 _Selfish_ , he chastises himself. Because Bucky’s hurt so much. Bucky’s lost so much, Bucky’s been through _so much_ and what kind of horror had he been, then, to try to keep Bucky from his happiness, to take all that Bucky gave him and demand even more; but what kind of _monster_ was he _now_ , to even _think_ to keep Bucky from the stillness, from the comfort he seems to find in her arms—what kind of love is that, regardless of what’s ever been returned; how can Steve claim to love James Buchanan Barnes with every fiber of his being and then deny him solace, take from him his joy?

Because it is joy, that soft curl of those dear lips, the gentleness on those features that are too often so fiercely schooled, so sharp at their edges—it’s joy in the both of them, and beyond all wanting in his veins, what kind of _friend_ is Steve to Natasha, who is a rock and a boon and a blessing, who was all he had for far too long beyond the yearning for a ghost—what kind of person is so hateful, so greedy to think only of himself, to want so fierce and single-mindedly, wholeheartedly to the point of vice, to the point where he’ll rob fulfilment from the two people who mean the most; Steve doesn’t recognize himself in such injustice, in such miserly need.

Except that Steve recognizes himself just fine.

 _Coward_ , he hisses, gouges it deep out of his psyche, because it’s true.

It’s true. He has no claim, he never said a word: not then, not now, not to anyone. He’d rubbed out his wanting, all desire and the pain-twinge in his heart that meant the threat of need rather than the threat of death—he’d moaned one name in private where no other name’d ever tread, but he’d never stood up and tried, never squared shoulders and risked. Coward.

He was a coward. He should have said. He should have leapt, and damn the consequences.

He should have _reached_ —

Bucky’s murmuring low where Natasha’s turned toward him, words out of Steve’s sight, deeper than even he can hear. Bucky’s fingers are still in Natasha’s hair, sifting slower now, all shine to them, all diamonds against the red. 

Bucky barely touches Steve at all, hardly so much as a brush against him in close-quarters, but from the left: never. Not _ever_.

And maybe this is karma, maybe this is the universe cycling back around because all he’s asked for, all he’s prayed to the god he can’t confirm but can’t quite bring himself to deny, his mother’s voice in his ear even now: all that Steve’s begged to know is Bucky at ease, Bucky at peace. All he’s asked for for Bucky is _happiness_ , and that’s what he’s seeing.

Maybe he should have been more specific. Maybe he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the goddamned mouth.

 _Selfish_ , and it burns in his gut, churns in his blood. He breathes deep.

He is selfish.

But he’s better than this. He loves _deeper_ than _this_.

So much _deeper_.

So: if Steve can’t have what he wants, if his heart can’t know what it needs, then he can sure as hell step up and protect what he loves from harm, from hurt where it should only know goodness; where Bucky should only know warmth, and light.

He can find courage for that much, at least.

_______________________________

Natasha stifles a yawn as she uncurls from the couch, stands and stretches until her back pops satisfyingly: both for the feeling, and for the smirk that James gives her every time.

“I’ve got some years on you, Romanoff, but my bones sure as hell don’t do _that_.”

She sighs, dramatically enough to keep the quirk in his lips. “We can’t _all_ be supersoldiers, Barnes.”

She leans back down and kisses his cheek; he returns the gesture and hums in her ear: “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Flatterer,” she smacks his arm—left, and she eyes him pointedly for it; his expression tightens, but he gives a nod.

“Gym at oh-eight-hundred?” she quirks a brow.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Good,” she smiles, lets it leer a little dangerously. “You’ll tell me how it goes?” Both a question and a threat.

Which is utterly wasted on Barnes, really; he shrugs, noncommittal. “ _If_ it goes.”

And Natasha’s more than trained well enough to know when to play the long game, else she wouldn’t be here in the first place: that said? These two lovesick morons and their inability to use their goddamned _words_ is starting to test even _her_ notorious patience.

She chances an exasperated flick to the exposed bicep of James’ left arm on the way out, relishing the _ping_ of her nail against the plates and the indignant huff that echoes below—uses the small satisfaction to steel herself against the encounter she knows is waiting in the hallway, just in front of her exit at the elevator. 

“Captain,” she says, deadpan as ever when she addresses his rank. “Fancy meeting you here.”

She can see the immediate response flicker across Steve’s face— _But I live here_; endearing as fuck, this ninety-some-year-old dumbass.

But said endearing dumbass is currently looking at her, all wide eyes and nothing held back because it’s a goddamned qualifier that all endearing dumbasses wear their squishy, bleeding hearts on their sleeves, apparently: wrapped up in nothing but loyalty and how bad they are at keeping their feelings in check.

“Whatever it is, spit it out. I’ve got somewhere to be,” Natasha says, evenly as she can because she loves Steve, she does—a whole bunch, even. But he’s as much of an idiot as the other half of that unflagging shoulder-heart of his where it's sitting in the living room.

She should get hazard pay for this shit.

She glances down at her phone, willing Clint to reply to her text and give her a viable out, but no: still what it was when it prompted her to leave her very comfortable place on the couch her, for the promise of a lot more than just comfort back on her own floor.

 **From: Bae** [22:13]   
  
Your money’s only good for another hour and forty-some minutes, so verdict. Who’s buying dinner tomorrow night?  
  
**To: Bae** [22:15]  
  
You changed your name in my phone again, you asshole.

Natasha rolls her eyes again at the so-called-endearment. That _asshole_.

“Look,” Steve’s saying, all that star-spangled earnestness rolling off him in gales. “I…”

He meets her eyes, and she sees it all play out in those baby blues, and she can’t help herself—or more, she doesn’t _want_ to help herself, in this: she snorts, and chokes on a laugh so high-pitched, even she’ll admit it as a cackle.

Because she can damn well _smell_ it on him. He’s trying to give her The Talk.

Point of fact: hazard pay wouldn’t even _begin_ to cover this bullshit. 

“You’re an idiot, Rogers,” she says, flat and plain because it’s the deepest truth she’s ever known. “But go ahead,” she waves him on indulgently, watches as he flushes, as he processes the smirk on her lips and the recognition in her eyes. “Continue.”

Steve frowns. “You already know—”

“No, no. Please,” Natasha goads him. “I want to hear it.”

She’s not sure that she really does. Actually, no: she’s sure that she _doesn’t_ , because if the idea of her with James is laughable, and the fact of Clint waiting for her is truth, than the idea that Steve—who’s more in love than Natasha’s ever believed to be possible, and still isn’t sure can be real; the idea that _Steve_ is tearing himself to shreds in front of her by trying to give her the stern talking-to required to keep her from breaking the heart he’s been mooning over for near on a century?

 _That’s_ just goddamn _sad_.

So no, she doesn’t want to hear it. But she thinks that maybe Steve does need to have it said.

And she loves Steve. She does.

Her phone buzzes in her palm and she spares it a glance.

 **From: Bae** [22:21]  
  
You never changed your password after I cracked it the last time. Proof of your love :-*

And she bites her lip against a grin, but doesn’t bother fighting the rise of warmth that follows the urge: lets it buoy her instead as her fingers type without her watching the screen.

 **To: Bae** [22:22]  
  
Dick.

She meets Steve’s eyes again, and doesn’t back down until he starts to stammer.

“Just,” he gestures indistinctly. “It’s just,” and his gaze is pleading. “I trust you, Nat, don’t think that I don’t, but he, I, he’s, I just,” he licks his lips, eyes starting to get wild around the edges as his breath catches, as his chest heaves; “Don’t, you know. Just be,” he runs a hand through his hair and glances around, just this side of frantic: “I—”

“Jesus, Steve,” she reaches for him on instinct, steadying hand to his elbow, palm to the trembling stretch of his forearm. "You’re gonna give yourself a stroke.”

And Steve's too wrapped in it, too riled up: too lost in his own head and all the things Natasha only lets herself half-read and dissect because Steve is her friend, Steve is her family, and she can't do that. 

Not to him.

But as a friend, as family: Natasha can certainly damn well give him a nudge. 

“Look,” she breathes out slow, and wishes Clint were here for this, because he'd say it clearer. Not better, no: Clint would say something fucking stupid and insensitive but it'd get the point across in a way Natasha—when she is _Natasha_ —can't without cutting too deep; Clint would say it, short and sweet and ruthless, and Steve would've already sobbed his sad grandpa heart out to Barnes and they'd be fucking like rabbits by now. 

But Natasha's never been one to go out soft on a bet, so. She'll do what she can with what she has.

 _That_ , she knows. 

"I know what’s not mine to say, where it’s not my place to speak," she starts, and speaks slowly, deliberate so Steve can follow, can track her voice through all the feelings he's wallowing in just now. 

"But what _is_ mine to say is that I’ve got my own idiot waiting for me upstairs. And more than that, well,” she pauses, breathes in to steady them both because Steve’s eyes are getting big as he doubtlessly tries to figure out whether Natasha’s indulging a threesome.

“From there, all I’m going to do is ask you a question, and I want you to think about what I’m _saying_ , okay?”

It takes him a moment, and a few false starts at interrupting that she glares into submission; it takes him a moment, but he nods, and so she asks. 

“What do you _have_ , Steve?” 

The ridges of confusion that fold across his brow make clear what Natasha's always known: this is Steve Rogers, whose only tolerance for subtlety's in fine fucking art.

Now just to get that down to _fine fucking_ , sans the art. 

She tilts her head, and tries to will him toward the obvious. 

“In this world, what do you have that you can call yours?”

Steve's face scrunches up a bit as he considers, which is all the evidence she needs of her failure in advance, really, and Natasha Romanoff doesn't do failure. Steve deserves a fucking medal, here.

Or, you know. _Another_ medal. Which he doesn’t need, because he’s got plenty, but that’s not the point. 

Not at all the point.

“Friends,” Steve finally offers, those soulful baby blues looking at her meaningfully and forcing sentimentality out of her fingertips as she squeezes his arm in solidarity, in confirmation— _yes, stupid, we're still friends even though you can't see the googly eyes being made at you from the couch_. 

“Good health,” he adds with a definitive sort of nod, and Natasha just rolls her eyes at that one. Which is probably rude, so: she rolls her eyes on the _inside_. 

And then Steve's gaze shifts; no more than a twitch, no more than a blink, to the space beyond them, behind them: the room with the sofa where a man who loves this man who loves him _back_ is sitting, and maybe there's hope, maybe it's a Christmas fucking miracle some months out of sync or whatever, maybe—

“Purpose,” Steve says, and nods, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Natasha gives him a minute to put the pieces together, to prove that he's smarter than he looks, that outside of a battle strategy he can still tie his fucking shoes and identify which way is up; Natasha stares at him and telegraphs with all the considerable concentration she possesses the words she knows run through his mind on repeat, tries to take him back to before. And then after. To Brooklyn where she never was, to captivity in a van where they sat and he said it, he _said it_ —

___Even when I had nothing—_ _ _

Nope. Nothing. Up is down and Rogers is oblivious and she's going to have to buy Clint dinner. Son of a _bitch_. 

“Right," she sighs, and slips around the breadth of Steve's frame to call for the elevator. "Well, take all that away, and give me a call when you pull your head out of your ass far enough to see what’s left, yeah?” 

__The doors open, and she catches the drop of Steve's jaw, the widening of his eyes, and maybe it's cheating to look pointedly toward the sitting area, maybe it's crossing a line to nod in that direction and mouth _go _, over and again until it clicks.___ _

____Maybe. But the elevator doors had been closing, so it's not like there's any certainty that Steve could see it anyway. Therefore: no cheating._ _ _ _

____Natasha turns to her phone and sees if there's any reply to her apt terming of the idiot on the other end as "dick"._ _ _ _

____ _ _

______ _ _

**From: Bae** [22:22]  
  
That a request? Because if so, it could be arranged.

Natasha could pretend she doesn't snort at that, but there's no point. JARVIS is the only one who'll know, and they have an understanding. What happens in the elevators stays in the elevators.

And when Natasha laughs, there is never any security footage.

 **To: Bae** [22:25]  
  
Jackass.  
  
**From: Bae** [22:26]  
  
I speak fluent Natasha. That means yes.

She glances to the numbers climbing above the doors—she's got time to have some fun. Fuck knows she's earned it.

 **To: Bae** [22:27]  
  
Your gamble. Parlay for dinner and a movie?  
  
**From: Bae** [22:27]  
  
Not some trashy Oscar-bait.  
  
**To: Bae** [22:27]  
  
Then don’t lose.  
  
**From: Bae** [22:28]  
  
Something with explosions. Preferably a Michael Bay movie.  
  
**To: Bae** [22.:28]  
  
Uncultured swine.  
  
**From: Bae** [22:28]  
  
YOUR uncultured swine.

The slowing of the lift gives her time for one more gibe before the doors slide opened.

 **To: Bae** [22:29]  
  
I’m walking in. Take the bet or leave it, but you’re already buying dinner. So.

She steps out, and maybe she's being arrogant on her end, but she's a spy: she knows people.

And she won't admit it, but they're her friends, so she has faith.

And if she hears the distinct sound of a body flopping against the creaky springs of their bed as she enters the apartment, well: fair's fair, she thinks, and she strips off her shirt and unhooks her bra on the way down the hall—it's a win-win for Clint to take this round.

And she'll stomach Bruce Willis on an asteroid for two hours, so long as she gets to stomach sushi and Barton in a suit first. 

_______________________________

 

The truth is, he doesn’t understand it anymore. 

Bucky’d tried to hide it from her, at first—tried to just nod and bite his lip, and he thinks maybe he managed to slip it past her the first few days, when words were still scarce in any tongue, when he still shivered at night, when he still lashed out before waking came back to him: when he couldn’t call himself a name, because he didn’t know which one fit.

He thinks he might have fooled her, once or twice, but she’s sharp, she’s smart: she’d noticed, when the Russian had gone far over his head.

And it’s not that he isn’t picking it up here and there; his mind was advanced by the serum as much as anything else was, but as the memories came back, as those pathways and capacities had slipped back into focus, others had faded, fallen by the wayside. His facility with Russian was collateral damage.

And even when she falters, and there’s longing in her eyes for him to _understand_ , he can’t say that he regrets the exchange; that he wishes to know those words ever again.

 _Puts me at ease_ , she tells him, when his wide eyes meet the gleam of compassion in hers; when he doesn’t have to confess with words. _Makes me feel safe_.

It’s the least Bucky can do for her, considering. To listen.

And he does. He listens from across the kitchen table. He listens from opposite ends of the couch. He listens when she comes close enough to brush his shoulder when they both breathe, and she doesn’t come closer until his heart stops pounding with the threat of what he is, what he might do, what he dreams of, with a face bloody under his hands with a body broken in the river, with life lost because of _him_ —

She reads in him all the things he can’t say, and he’s grateful.

 _We’ll do this slow_ , she murmurs to him. _You miss him. We’ll get you back to him._

He doesn’t believe her. But he lets her try. He knows that she won’t do anything stupid when he finally fails her, when he finally breaks the trust she places in him, the trust that he doesn’t deserve and has no idea the origin of, the reason for: whatever was good in him—and he’s willing to own that once, there _was_ good in him—but whatever good he held claim to, he knows it’s been twisted, knows it’s bastardized beyond recognition.

He lets her try, though, because he’s foolish. Because he stares at the Captain, at _Steve_ , and it hurts in a way that strikes him, hard and fast and deeper than the pain in his flesh, then the saw to his bones and the weight of the metal: deeper, because he’d forgotten.

He’d forgotten himself, and right against wrong, and what it means to ache on the inside of the heart, for the wanting and the feeling and the love you can’t control.

He lets her try, because he know she won’t let him harm her. He knows she won’t relinquish safety, or grant him leave: won’t lie there and take it. He knows she won’t do some stupid fucking thing like dropping her weapon and her safety to the depths below and welcoming death like a goddamned friend.

So when she start leaning against him, he lets himself take the time to remember what it means to touch without threat. To be touched without agenda.

When she sits to his left, and does the same, he reminds himself what it means to breathe, to taste air against the racing in his blood.

When she settles against him, when she stretches against his thighs—when she takes his hand in hers and holds it for days until he holds hers back: gentle, careful until he’s learned it; when she guides it to her hair and lets it settle there, still, and then teaches him to trace, to stroke, to show affection in small ways and see _that_ in the motion of the plates, the whir of the mechanisms: to see the capacity for more than just rage, and destruction, and loss. To see capacities _above_ rage, and destruction, and loss.

“Двадцать три.”

His hand stills, now, in her hair. The words aren’t entirely unfamiliar, but he still doesn’t know what they mean.

“Английский,” he says, because she’s taught him that much, to request it: _English_.

“Twenty-three.”

He narrows his eyes at her, uncomprehending, until she meets his gaze with a pointedness that he can feel through his skin.

“Weeks,” she says, arching into his touch. “Twenty-three weeks and not so much as a twitch out of line.”

Bucky’s fingers flinch against the strands of her curls, attention drawn—unavoidable.

“Do you still have to think about it?”

He doesn’t. He should, but he doesn’t, and he’s afraid of what that means. Of what he’ll allow it to mean, and the risks he’ll allow himself to take, the leap he might consider when he meets blue eyes, when golden hair falls against those cheekbones, when he wants nothing more than to touch that jawline and maybe, one day, maybe _taste_ —

 

“Talk to him,” Natasha exhales, fierce and brooking no argument; begging, as best Bucky suspects she’s capable of. “Say something, Barnes. Jesus,” and when she reaches, and he looks away, buries his face in the cushion that waits for him at his side; when she reaches, and makes contact with his chest, and there’s no way she misses the rise and fall of it too fast, the flutter of his pulse below: she softens. His hand tightens against her scalp—not a threat to her.

A threat to _himself_

“How long have you loved him?” she whispers. It’s not the first time that she’s asked it, but there’s a shift to it; there’s a difference, here, and he can’t tell what it is, just knows that it’s there.

“How long has _he_ loved _you_?”

And Bucky’s heart trips around that, because he’s hoped, he’s suspected, he’s _longed_ for it against bloody noses and rasping breaths and bodies transformed, for them both. Across more time than makes any sense; across the room where he thinks he might feel Steve’s eyes on him, even now, but he won’t turn—he will not turn.

He’s dared to hope, but never to _believe_.

“Hasn’t it been long _enough_?”

He’s saved from responding, from answering her, from saying _yes, God, yes_, and _no, it will never be long enough because I don’t deserve, I can’t risk, some days he’s the only reason I have to try at all and if I lose him—_

He’s saved from responding by the text alert on Natasha’s phone.

“Aww,” Bucky clears his throat, forces himself to shift away from the weight in his chest that _needs_ without relent as he reads the name on the screen, though the message is swiped away before he can see what it says. “Looks like it’s your Hawk Guy.” 

Natasha snorts at the name. “He hates you.”

“Because I clean up on his sorry ass at the range every goddamn time,” Bucky gloats, just a little as he idly fingers the arrow that sits at the base of Natasha throat. “Tell your boy to stop making stupid bets.”

“He draws from Stark’s account, so.”

And Bucky can’t help but stifle a snort, because Clint would. Of course Clint would.

“Tell him, James.” Natasha’s tone is low, and her eyes honest, and Bucky can’t hide from them. Anywhere he’d try to escape to’d be worse; is too filled with Steve to offer reprieve. “Let him _in_.”

She doesn’t say anything else before standing, stretching; they say their good-nights, Bucky only half-present in the ritual—he knows that Steve stops her, hears shuffling and low tones, but he doesn’t listen, can’t hear above the pulsing of his heart, overbearing and almost terrifying as it tends to be when she leaves, these days: when she tells him to take the chance, when she offers her vote of confidence and her plea to take happiness in both hands and never let go.

The rhythm’s made of wanting. The rhythm’s made of all the fear he’s ever known.

“Buck?”

He starts, meets those high-tide eyes, takes in that soft-cut face—the edges, the hard lines muted by concern: he stops counting his own pulse in favor of numbering Steve’s where it fights with the pull of the skin at his neck.

“Can,” Steve nods to the empty space on the couch at his side; Steve wrings his hands, breathes in shaky, swallows hard; Bucky watches, does the same damn thing without thinking on it, without trying. “I mean, do you mind—”

“S’your place,” Bucky says it with a shrug, and it rasps harder than it should; he doesn’t think, and Steve’s expression falls with the blow of it.

“It’s _our_ place, Bucky,” Steve says, soft, and Bucky feels—somewhere he doesn’t understand, can’t pinpoint but _knows_ feels it, the heart he loves where it contorts, where it breaks a little because of his words, because of _him_.

God _damnit_ , he’s not _ready_ ; he’s not _safe_.

He _can’t_.

But Steve’s close enough that Bucky feels his heat across the space, different from Natasha’s, different because he _wants_ so _bad_ —and Steve’s awkward with it, Steve’s tense and Bucky doesn’t think, Bucky doesn’t have to think and it’s a danger, he’s a danger, he shouldn’t, he isn’t—

He leans, he slides, he falls and he places his head in Steve’s lap because Natasha is safe when she’s like that, Natasha is soft when she’s like that, and he can’t hold Steve, not yet, he can’t be trusted, he isn’t safe.

But maybe. _Maybe_ it’s been more than long enough.

And Bucky might not be safe—cannot trust himself to be less than a threat, but this. Here. With _him_.

With Steve, Bucky is _made_ safe: every cell of him. Every drop of blood and shard of bone.

And Steve’s heart’s a heavy drum against Bucky’s ear where he turns into Steve’s body; Steve’s hand is hesitant to rest against his shoulder, to curl atop his cheek, to thread through his hair. Steve’s sigh is all the right things; Steve’s breath makes Bucky think of love.

Bucky closes his eyes, and wants to believe; he hopes, and it doesn’t feel empty.

His eyes are damp, and Steve’s breaths catch, and Bucky curls in closer, takes Steve’s hand in his own at the right, and thinks: the left will follow.

They’ll get there.

**Author's Note:**

> On [tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
